Welcome to another great Trade Me find. In this article we cover an incredibly well built Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 2 race car.
This Evo is a really clean and straight looking car that appears to have been thought out and built incredibly well. The black paint combined with the silver Enkei RPF1 wheels makes for a really good colour contrast.
The car is powered by Mitsubishi's legendary 4G63T Turbocharged 2.0L Twin Cam Straight 4 with this one producing 365 KW of power. The engine utilises a Mitsubishi Galant VR4 block and crankshaft, ported VR4 head with Ralliart head gasket, forged pistons, ARP studs, baffled sump, HD valve springs & retainers, Kelford TX272 cams with HKS cam gears and a Link Plus G3 ECU that has been upgraded to Link G4 spec. The turbo also runs 16 psi of boost and this setup makes for a reliable and powerful engine. The Evo also comes with a stroked 2.3L 4G63T that is fully built and features a lot of expensive parts.
Mated to the engine is an Evo 3 gearbox with a Cusco LSD in the front and a preloaded rear plate LSD in the rear. Also equipped is a fancy Tilton twin plate clutch.
In the boot is a safety fuel cell with a fuel cooler and a Carter lift pump.
Inside the Evo is an OMP racing seat with full racing harness, carbon fibre console and Momo steering wheel.
The roll cage is made by Octane Automotive and is all certified.
Overall, this Evo looks to be a rather quick beast. The asking price is $30,000 which isn't too bad considering what you get for your money. The car is located in Taupo. To check out the Trade Me listing, click here.
Thanks for reading another Home Built NZ article. Stay tuned for more cool car stuff.
Welcome to a little project that we built over the past few days. Yes we were building a Supra and yes we haven't given up on it yet, we just so happened to have a spare Ford Escort Hot Wheels car lying around and couldn't resist building a custom out of it.
We decided to do a rat rod approach to showcase the hard life of many MK1 Ford Escort coupes. It also looks damn cool and we utilised rust from Project Whizbox to give it an authentic ratty feel.
Behind the rear wheels is some remnants of previous burnout comps or in this case, crushed up crayons does the trick.
The rear end was left largely factory apart from the rear lights being tinted.
The interior was also painted with the seats being painted black, the vents being also painted black and a little fire extinguisher located in the passengers footwell was also painted red. The steering wheel had a black rim added to it and the shift knob was painted white with the shift boot painted black. (Sorry for the bad pics)
This car was actually a custom build for a mate and caused quite a stir when showcased for the first time after it was finished.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more awesome articles!!!
Hooray! The Mini has a roll cage. A huge thanks to fellow Mini enthusiast Roger Bolam for kindly giving us the roll cage. This means that we will possibly be able to run the Mini in events that require a roll cage. Thanks Roger!
Thursday, 22 September 2016
Here's a great photo we found while surfing the net, Alex Kelsey's MC2 (Mad Creation 2) doing what it does best. The car is based on a Peugeot but with the running gear from a Formula Renault and sounds awesome. The car is also road legal but I don't think you would use it as a runabout to go to the shops though!
Here's a clip of this car via The Smoking Tire on Youtube. (Turn up the sound!)
With New Zealand's agreement to cut down emissions, the future of our petrol, diesel and LPG powered vehicles seems to be bleak. With the rapid rise in technology it seems that we are almost certain to be driving vacuum cleaners in the future. But is the future of motoring so bad after all?
Take the Tesla Model S for example, this incredibly complex piece of engineering and technology has revolutionised and innovated the electric vehicle industry with the P85D model being so fast that it can outsprint most modern supercars to 100 KMH (The 2,239 KG P85D goes from 0 to 100 KMH in 3 seconds flat!).
However, all these technological marvels come at a price, the Tesla has a base price of approximately $117,522 NZD (Tesla Australia) which is quite pricey considering you could get a similarly equipped petrol powered Audi A5 for $88,500 (Audi New Zealand)
Unfortunately for most of us without deep pockets, we will be stuck with these "fabulous" cars, the Nissan Leaf and the Toyota Prius. I can see where the car manufacturers are going with their new hybrid and electric vehicles as there is a need to curb our carbon emissions drastically as society expands and to prevent the planet from being over polluted but the car companies just don't seem to be able to make the cars look particularly pleasing. Take the Prius for example, it is one of the world's most successful hybrid cars but it just doesn't look too good. The package is there it's just it's not very appealing. If the companies started building cars that have attractive styling just like the Tesla, I believe that people will be more inclined to go electric and will be encouraged to embrace this advanced new technology.
Overall, I think electric power will be the way of the future but the internal combustion engine will never truly die. Petrol, diesel and LPG motors also do not require a lot of specialist equipment to repair and replacing batteries is an incredibly time consuming, expensive and complex job. Also, how could we possibly ditch an engine that can produce sounds like this Nissan S20 Straight six in the Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R above? (skip to 10:10 for the noise!)
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more automotive articles.
Once a year, a sprint event is held at a stretch of road along Shelly Bay called the Shelly Bay Sprint. This year it is being held on the 2nd of October and it is one event that is worth watching due to the vast array of cars that compete. Come along and support the Wellington Car Club and Hutt Valley Motorsport Club and also have a fun day out watching some quality automotive action.
Here's a taster of the sort of cars that compete in this event and also the challenging and technical course.
This weeks Trade Me Find caught my eye as soon as it showed up on my Trade Me search in specialist cars, a mental twin turbo Nissan 300ZX that is built for drag racing
The main thing that drew my attention was this set of twin GT35 turbochargers that protrude out of the bonnet right next to a massive bonnet scoop. I immediately thought "this thing looks insane" and it is with the Trade Me description stating that it swaps lanes frequently when run on 25 psi and so is run on 10 psi safely.
The ZX is powered a 350 Chev motor with the twin GT35 turbos with new low compression hypereutectic pistons, lumpier cam, NOS and a whole host of upgrades that is too big for me to list. It currently runs on 100 octane race fuel and no power is stated though but i'd say it would probably be more than 500 BHP.
The interior is fully purpose built and features an aluminium dash and center console, racing gauges, a racing bucket seat and a fire extinguisher and full roll cage for stiffness and safety. I would say this car would be crazy light considering the interior is pretty much stripped out and that most of the weight is on the front end due to the large engine and turbo setup.
Overall, this is probably one of the most mental 300ZX's ever built and must be incredibly fun tearing up the quarter mile in. The car currently has a buy now price of $15,000 and starting bid price of $10,000 which is incredibly cheap for a ready to race twin turbo v8 drag car. The car is also located in Auckland.
You can check out the Trade Me listing by clicking here.
What's your verdict on this crazy ZX? Leave a comment below or on our Facebook page. Thanks for reading!!!
Welcome to another installment of "Once common but now rare". In this article, we cover one of the most popular and well recognised vehicles of the 70's and 80's, the trusty and rather rusty Ford Escort.
The Ford Escort was first produced in 1968 and was a replacement for the Ford Anglia. The MK1 Escort was an incredibly practical vehicle that came in 4 different body styles, a 2 door saloon, 4 door saloon, 2 door van and 3 door station wagon. The Esky could be had with a variety of different straight four engines ranging from the 0.9 litre Crossflow OHV motor to the 2.0 litre Pinto OHC motor. MK1 Escorts were also produced in New Zealand in Seaview but only 1100 Deluxes and 1300 Supers.
The Escort was also a popular rally and racing car and Ford backed this up by releasing factory performance models. These were the Mexico, RS1600 and RS2000. The RS1600 was fitted with a very flash 1.6 litre BDA Twin Cam four cylinder that produced 113 BHP and the RS2000 was fitted with a 2.0 litre Pinto Single Cam four cylinder that produced 99 BHP. The Mexico however was powered by a 1.6 litre Kent Pushrod OHV four cylinder that produced 86 BHP.
The MK1 Escort was produced up until 1974 before the MK2 started to be produced that same year.
The MK2 Escort was released just after the MK1's production ended with a fresh and more angular design. Body style variants were still the same as the MK1 and engine choices were mostly the same four cylinder engines as the MK1 with the addition of a 1.6 litre variant of the OHC Pinto motor, a 1.8 litre Twin Cam Cosworth BDE and a 2.0 litre Twin Cam Cosworth BDG. The MK2 was also produced in New Zealand but at another factory in Wiri.
The MK2 Escort had even more sportier offerings due to Ford's continued competition in rallying. The RS2000 was still kept with the addition of an RS1800 that featured the Cosworth BDE motor and produced a healthy 125 BHP. For an additional cost, you could have a special edition widebody Escort called the X-Pack which is based on any of the RS range and is an incredibly rare vehicle.
The Escort was still immensely competitive in rallying, racking up countless privateer wins and with the RS1800 winning 20 rounds of the World Rally Championship between 1975 and 1981. Escorts are still contested in many rallies across the world still as they are a popular rear wheel drive platform that is prime for rallying. This is one of the main reasons why there is hardly any Esky's left as they were thrashed by many and driven into the ground due to them being great for rallying and racing but cheap and plentiful on the second hand market.
Rallying wasn't the only motorsport that they competed in, there was also Group 2 and Group 5 Escorts that were incredibly fast and super lightweight. They were also powered by BDG engines which could happily rev to the moon and back. Even today, Escorts are campaigned on the track all around the world and have gained quite a cult following.
Overall, the Ford Escort is truly one of the most iconic cars in history as many people grew up around them or owning them and they are an incredibly practical and fun car to drive.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more great articles on everything automotive!!!
Welcome to a long awaited update on our little side project, the widebody Hot Wheels Toyota Supra. So far the build is coming along nicely with the addition of a redesigned rear flair guard (yes only one is on there at the moment!) and more finely sculpted front flair guards.
The Supra definitely looks wider with it's newly designed widebody and should look quite aggressive once we add some additional aero to it, but that's another story!!!
The rear flair guard definitely makes the rear look much fatter than usual and sits flush with the bodywork.
We repainted the interior with the back seats and dash board being painted black. The original teal looks pretty cool and so we kept the original seats that colour. We also painted the gear knob and shift
For the painting we used some black and white Humbrol Acrylic paint that was kindly donated by a fellow Hot Wheels enthusiast. It is one of the best paints that I have ever used as well.
Overall, I am very pleased with how the Supra is coming along. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more awesome car stuff!!!
This weeks Trade Me find is an incredibly unique and one of a kind vehicle that I have never seen or heard of, The Toreti kit car.
As soon as I looked under "Specialist Cars" on Trade Me this marvellous creation appeared at the top of the list and I couldn't refuse clicking on the link.
This car is an interesting looking vehicle that appears to have been painstakingly crafted by hand out of fibreglass. Not surprisingly, when I googled the car's name there was no information on it at all which hints to it being a one off special.
The Toreti comes as a body only and the lucky buyer will have to use their own Volkswagen Beetle chassis and drive train plus their own interior. By the looks of it, you could possibly fit a Mazda Rotary engine in the back instead of the Volkswagen flat four and make an interesting custom out of it.
The interior of the car looks quite sporty and features a lot of aftermarket gauges, sports steering wheel and a Hurst style shifter and looks good in black.
At the back are twin exit exhausts with some very familiar rear tail lights that are scavenged off an R32 Skyline coupe.
Overall, the Toreti is a perfect vehicle for someone who wants to drive something that is quite a lot different to everything else that is on the road. The car is currently at a bid of $225 at the time of writing with the reserve met and is located in Lower Hutt.
What's your verdict on this unique kit car? Leave a comment below or on our Facebook page
